I.
To fit a lizard, the jaw of this dress unlocks.
Fitting sounds like eating, and mothers
tell their daughter to shut their eyes.
Imagine pins inside the unmarried,
pins to decorate
the insides of a church.
Girls wear dresses that mothers sew for them.
this dress //// flag //// shroud
In the 1800s my greatgreatgreatgreat grand
mothers swam to ships
to trade sex for cloth, iron, and mirrors.
Did you see yourself in their glass, mother?
Did you cut the shape of your body
and send it whistling through the ocean?
When a cliff becomes altar
and the Pacific
in the name of civilization
is properly dressed
daughters inside
pine away
the altitude of faith.
II.
Inside the dress, there is a creature, she
careful
is a cliff in a girl’s body.
And the cliff was a lizard once still turned
to rock she gazed too much like she
careful
had a kingdom inside.
Inside the dress, holes are cut
so the cliff can breathe and
any girl watching
any girl waiting
any glint of a girl’s
mother’s metal scissors can still find her—
careful
there are still pins inside.
Noʻu Revilla is the author of Ask the Brindled. She is an ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) queer poet and educator. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Poetry, Literary Hub, ANMLY, Beloit Poetry Journal, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress. Her latest chapbook, Permission to Make Digging Sounds, was published in Effigies III in 2019, and she has performed throughout Hawaiʻi as well as Canada, Papua New Guinea, and the United Nations. She is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa, where she teaches creative writing with an emphasis on ʻŌiwi literature, spoken word, and decolonial poetics. Born and raised in Waiʻehu on the island of Maui, she currently lives and loves in the valley of Pālolo on the island of Oʻahu.
Copyright © 2022 by Noʻu Revilla. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions.
No’u Revilla’s latest book is Ask the Brindled (Milkweed Editions, 2022), a National Poetry Series winner. Visit with her and her work at the Miami Book Fair 2022 on 11/13 at noon 12 virtually at MiamiBookFairOnline.com. Cover art by: Jocelyn Ng. Cover designed by Mary Austin Speakers.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s preview coverage of Miami Book Fair (MBF) 2021! The poets whose work you’ll be reading every weekday from October 25 through November 12 are just a few of the many authors from around the world participating in this year’s MBF, the nation’s largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages. They all look forward to sharing their work, thoughts, and ideas both in person and online. Between November 14 and November 21, new poet conversations and readings will be launched and available for free on miamibookfaironline.com (in addition to other content). For more information, visit the website and follow MBF on Instagram and Twitter at @miamibookfair and use the hashtag #miamibookfair2021.